It is not. I know this post would not make universal friendship, but please hold fire. When you buy from ebay, most case items shipping from HK or Shenzhen. Here is a little background of Shenzhen.

Shenzhen is "small" city of China, and the population is roughly ten million. It start build at 1980, roughly thirty years ago.

Shenzhen 1980

Shenzhen 2012

Hua Qiang Bei is the Electronic Market District of Shenzhen. It is the largest Electronic Marketplace in Asia and trading most electronic devices in the world.

One shopping mall outside view, Hua Qiang Bei has 10 big one , a lot of small one.

shopping mall inside view

one sample IC counter, hundred and hundred boothes sell IC

one sample LED counter, hundred and hundred boothes sell IC

The price you get from ebay at most case 50% higher and you pay HK person lunch bill since they have to pick up at Shenzhen, Is it still at the right price? You should know where you go for next vacation?

if you ask how many stores sell IC at Hua Qiang Bei, correct answer should be nobody know. only God know.

If cost is an issue why not buy a legitimate arduino and a bootloaded atmega328 and the few other things needed to take the project off of the arduino when done programming it so that it can be reused? I've made dozens of arduino projects and have only ever owned the one UNO board I started with.

Thank you for the visual tour of Shenzhen sonnyyu, those were very interesting pictures. As a youth I would have loved to be able to shop via such electronic bazaars, not unlike my memories of searching through WWII surplus stores in the 50/60s for electronic bargains that I could afford.

At my age I'm happy to just sit back and search through E-bay listing, even if I do end up contributing to someone's lunch fund. I feel it's never been a better time in history for enjoying DIY electronics as prices and availability have never been better.

without go customer order, the max height is 16 inches. I never need those LED. no idea for price it. but after quick baidu search. here is the rough price I got.

7 inches for 5.00 USD10 inches for 10.00 USD16 inches for 42.00 USD

"HUGE" might mean diff in Shenzhen, A trading partner bring me to restaurant not far from Shenzhen. He told me we are going to have diner at big restaurant. once we arrived, I understand what is mean big( HUGE) restaurant. The restaurant has more than 500 cookers working same time. 4-5K customers eat same time.